Parking shenanigans at the FBI
We had 15+ minutes of fame a few years ago for documenting the wanton parking behavior of U.N. diplomats, and for analyzing the relationship between parking violations and home-country corruption (The Swedes double-park less than the Nigerians).
We’re often asked about the parking habits of U.S. diplomats, and in Economic Gangsters we talk about the behavior of American diplomats in London (more like Nigerians than Swedes, we’re afraid). If unpaid parking violations really do tell us something about the honor of public servants, it looks like we may have to start worrying about the law enforcers themselves. (HT: Daniel Chen)
-Ray and Ted
In your infamous paper, you provided indictment about country and culture based on parking ticket violations of one or two diplomats. What does then this story in Washington Post says about the culture of corruption in the United States. You guys forgot to mention that the corruption index is a perception index–it does not measure actual corruption. Now Ted is taking that one step and connection foul committed by foreign players with their country’s corruption index. It is one think being playful, but using a flawed measure to indict countries as corrupt! This is too much.
I think you should incorporate these data and redo your paper. You owe it to Cameroon that much!